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  “Jeff Gilday, Nebraska State Patrol,” Gilday held out his hand.

  Thorne shook it, finding it to be a very strong handshake.

  “Jacob Thorne.”

  “Pleased to meet you. Hey, Gerry! This is my buddy, Gerry Scroggins.”

  Another trooper, Scroggins, strolled over from behind a coffee machine. Scroggins and Gilday, both tall men in their thirties with the confident walk of an ex-athlete, checked out the new arrivals. Scroggins shook Thorne’s hand, also inadvertently punishing Thorne’s fist with yet another strong grip.

  “Hey, how’re ya doing? You the new Fibbie profiler?” Scroggins asked with a large friendly grin.

  “Looks like it,” Thorne freed his hand as soon as possible and silently resolved to avoid this exercise with anyone else in Nebraska. Kane walked over quickly and stuck her hand out to give it a go.

  “How do you do, Special Agent Emma Kane,” she said, giving Gilday a knuckle-cracking handshake in return. Gilday was not at all displeased at the sight of someone as attractive as Kane and neither was Scroggins. They also both found themselves quite fond of her grip, though neither would allow themselves to ruminate too much upon its potential, that being not the proper thing to do while in uniform.

  “It is a definite pleasure,” Scroggins said.

  “Welcome to Nebraska.”

  “What’s the state patrol’s role in all of this?” Thorne asked.

  “On loan to the Task Force, by special order of the governor, until this gets resolved.”

  “His Honor the governor wants this creep caught quick so he sent his two best to assist in the capture and that would be us,” Scroggins said. “Pleased the Task Force captain to no end, you can bet. Not the most cooperative cop in the world, mostly lets us hang around as a liaison to the governor’s office.”

  “Gerry, careful.”

  “What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Any thoughts on the situation?” Gilday asked Thorne.

  “One or two,” Thorne replied.

  “You guys meet the captain yet?”

  “Not yet,” Kane said. “Apparently he’s relieving himself.”

  “There’s some good news,” Scroggins said. “He’s always a mean cuss until he’s had his afternoon shit.”

  Captain Forsythe approached with Hairston whispering close into his ear. A large, red-faced, jowly man of fifty who looked like he should be wearing sideburns even though he wasn’t, Forsythe was probably a big Elvis fan, Kane thought almost as a reflex. He glared at them.

  “You two are late. I despise tardiness. And you want to know what I despise more than tardiness?’

  “Passing notes in class?” Thorne asked. Forsythe looked at him for a moment, a hard look Kane was sure that Forsythe practiced in the bathroom mirror every morning. Forsythe cleared his throat and continued speaking.

  “I despise having so-called experts shoved into my investigation against my will. I hate and despise that. We have our own people here and they are fully capable of handling this situation.

  “The last clown you guys sent here, Riggs, turned the whole investigation into one large Chinese clusterfuck and that’s why he’s gone. I will not allow that to happen again. Your role here, in case you haven’t yet been told, is one of support. Nothing else. The FBI is not in charge of this case, I am.

  “The governor of this state has entrusted me with catching this sick fuck and I will not let two glamour-seeking federal fuckheads get in my way. Make no mistake; I am the Big Dog on this case. My personal opinion of what you paper-pushing academics do is that it’s mostly cable movie bullshit, but if by some twist of fate you DO have something of value to offer to this investigation, I will sit down with you later tonight and hear you out, but right now I have a press conference. Until then, just sit in the corner, fill out your little reports and stay the fuck out of my people’s way.”

  Forsythe swiveled and stalked off, adjusting his tie as Hairston followed. Kane and Thorne looked at each other.

  “I’m sure glad we caught him after his afternoon shit,” Kane said.

  Chapter Nine

  Kane discovered something new about herself when she arrived at Task Force Headquarters. She discovered that being among so many uniformed men and women made her feel very comfortable.

  Even as a detective in Homicide, though she didn’t wear one herself, she’d spent a lot of her time around the uniforms at the station. She hadn’t realized that she missed it, spending time with uniformed cops, and even though she’d never been terribly social all throughout her enforcement career, the sight of the uniform triggered something in her. It fostered a feeling of safety and security somewhere deep in her soul.

  A native of North Carolina, Kane had originally gone to college to become a doctor. She spent two years pre-med at Georgetown University before making the big switch to pre-law. It was an incident in her dorm during the start of her junior year that triggered the switch.

  As a dorm Resident Assistant, Kane was making a late night round in the hallway one Saturday night when she happened across one of her floor residents in a hot argument with her boyfriend. Seeing as that it was after curfew, those hours that members of the opposite sex were allowed on the floor, and that the young girl’s boyfriend had her pinned by the throat against the hallway wall, Kane had no choice but to intervene. It was her job as Resident Assistant, after all, to deal with these types of situations, Kane thought quite calmly at the time. Kane grabbed the young man’s arm and told him quite firmly to let the girl go. It did not go well from there.

  The boyfriend, the star center on the college basketball team, took exception to her interference and expressed it by backhanding Kane roughly, knocking her to the ground. Her lip bleeding, Kane could taste both blood and shock. Did he hit me? she thought at the time, did he? Did he actually hit me? The question echoed in her mind nonstop as the young giant redirected his anger and rage from his girlfriend onto Kane.

  Although Kane hadn’t considered herself sheltered, as a straight A student with loving parents and good manners, as an attractive girl who didn’t rebel through puberty, smoke, drink, stay out too late or do anything other than her homework, Kane realized at that very moment, that she was, in fact, very sheltered.

  Up to that point in life, she had never really witnessed or experienced any type of violence to her person other than the occasional “excuse me” type of bump in the hallway before class. In fact, males of all ages tended to exert every effort to charm the pretty young woman, holding doors open for her, pulling out chairs for her to sit, with nary a harsh word coming Kane’s direction from anyone of the opposite sex.

  The young man’s brutal backhand, delivered as casually as one might slap at a bug, shocked Kane, she felt shock to a degree that she’d never before felt in her life. For the first time in Kane’s life, she realized that the normal rules of behavior didn’t necessarily apply to everyone and that the large young man could and would hurt her without a second thought. For the first time in her life, Kane felt fear, real fear that flooded her entire being; fear and helplessness.

  The young basketball player tossed his sobbing girlfriend aside, reached down, picked Kane up and began to shake her. Being just an inch or two under seven feet, he was able to hold Kane quite a distance up off of the ground as he cursed her loudly for her interference. Drunk, his Oklahoma born pale skin blotched red with anger, the young giant screamed obscenities and spittle in her face and Kane couldn’t do anything about it, frozen like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car.

  A couple of other college athletes, basketball buddies of the center summoned by his hysterical girlfriend, showed up and grabbed the young man, forcing him to drop Kane. She lay there, unable to move or even speak and dorm residents poured out of their rooms to watch as the jocks wrestled the young center to the ground and sat on him.

  Finally Kane stood, went to her room and with shaking hands dialed nine-one-one. When the first policeman arrived on the
scene, she was so relieved at the sight of him that she couldn’t stop crying. Kane cried and her whole body shook like winter.

  The star center received a reprimand from the Dean of Students and was benched for all of one game by his coach. Kane pushed for an expulsion and criminal charges but was stymied at every turn, no one in administration was willing to get radical with the player that may be taking the school to the NCAA championship.

  None of the other students involved, including the abused girlfriend, would step up on her behalf, and without witnesses willing to come forward to testify. there was nothing to be done about criminal charges.

  Whenever she saw the star basketball center on campus after that, he never failed to flash her a satisfied smile, a sneer that spoke. “I did it once and got away with it,” the smile said silently to her, “and I could do it again whenever I want.”

  It was then that Emma Kane ceased being overly social with members of the opposite sex, in fact, stopped socializing with almost everyone.

  A charming, outgoing young woman up until that point, she withdrew within herself, afraid of the cold spike of fear that pierced her chest whenever she was reminded of what happened that night. And she was reminded every single time she saw swaggering, muscular young men walking as though they owned the world. She saw them and she shook with fear.

  Kane despised herself for the feeling and she despised those who caused her to feel that way. Her anger and fear grew to the extent that she knew that she absolutely had to do something or else it would destroy her. She chose to do two things. She signed up for a karate class on campus and she switched her major to law.

  Her parents had not been pleased with the switch but consoled themselves that a career as a lawyer was almost as reputable as that of a doctor. What they didn’t know was that their darling daughter never had any intention of going to law school, instead dreaming of a life in law enforcement. Unfortunately they never found out, either.

  One afternoon during Kane’s last semester of college, while driving home from the local grocery store, a drunk driver with a suspended license ran a stop sign and slammed into the Kane family station wagon, killing himself and both of Kane’s parents.

  A state trooper came to her dorm to deliver the sad news. Any lingering doubts about a career with a badge dissipated for good when she opened her dorm door to the man in uniform.

  A year later, Kane found herself clad in her own uniform and driving the streets of Washington DC, a city with one of the highest crime rates in the country. Her very first week on the job began auspiciously. Kane and her partner responded to a disturbing the peace call from a local bar late one night. A large drunken man rampaged within the establishment, voicing his displeasure at being cut off by the bartender by tossing barstools through the plate glass windows of the front of the bar.

  Her partner at that time was Brady, a muscular, overbearing man who waited all of ten minutes before making a pass at Kane on her first day. She was pretty sure he was on steroids, but aside from the mistaken belief that he was God’s gift to women, he was a pretty good cop and knew the street well. Together they confronted the rampaging drunk.

  Brady, police baton in hand, first tried reasoning with the big man, which only resulted in a stool tossed in the direction of Brady’s head. Brady dodged the stool, stepped in and swung his baton right for the man’s skull. Though drunk, he wasn’t slow, and the big man caught Brady’s arm with the baton in mid-swing. The drunk picked up Brady by the belt and tossed him right over the bar with a crash. The barflies watching the show responded with cheers at the sight of a cop flying through the air.

  Instinctively, Kane leaped to her partner’s aid without a second thought. The big drunk swung a meaty fist in a vicious swipe at her face and Kane bobbed right under it, kicked the drunk in the crotch and when he howled in pain, hooked his left foot with her police baton and pulled, yanking his feet right out from under him. The big man hit the ground with a huge thud. When he next opened his eyes, the drunk found himself staring at Kane’s pistol, drawn and pointed directly at his face.

  “Don’t move a fucking muscle,” Kane said, her voice and aim steady as a rock.

  Brady climbed back over the bar, blood dripping from a cut over his eyebrow, said, “Welcome to our nation’s capital,” and kicked the drunk in the floating ribs before rolling him over to cuff him.

  “Good work, rookie,” Brady said. “Are you having fun yet?”

  Kane offered her partner a polite smile but inside, inside she was grinning her ass off. It had been fun, but not for any reason Brady could have known. The fear that had been given birth to on that night in the dorm during her junior year, the cold shaking dread that had followed her for the past three years and had been her constant companion, it was gone. The fear was gone.

  It would stay gone for the next ten years, in the face of many a sticky situation, both on patrol as a uniform and later as a detective in Homicide. Kane would do her job with great pride and skill, never suspecting that it would be any other way for her. Never believing it was possible to feel the fear as she had when she was a young girl.

  Never knowing it would all change one day in a van on a highway. After The Van Incident, Kane’s hands and heart shook no matter how she fought it.

  Chapter Ten

  The other thing that Kane realized about herself was that she did not sit still very well. This wasn’t actually new information, Kane had always known it about herself but always conveniently forgot about it until the next time she had to sit and twiddle her thumbs, be it on stakeout or flying a desk in an office.

  Right now it was obvious that the locals were letting the feds stew in their own juice for a while. Kane flipped through the most recent forensic files on her desk, helpfully dropped off by a wide-eyed rookie cop who looked like he would be ready to shave any day now.

  Thorne had taken charge of a large desk in one corner with a view of the map on the wall, plugged in a CD player and set up a travel chessboard. John Coltrane blared as Thorne considered the chessboard in front of him and moved one of the white pawns on the board. He still hadn’t said much of anything about anything and it was beginning to irk Kane.

  “Have you seen the latest forensic report from the Frederickson house?” Kane asked.

  Thorne glanced up at Kane. He took the report from her, gave it a quick look and set it on the table next to his chessboard.

  “So what do you think?” Kane asked.

  “What do I think about what?”

  “What do you think about the forensics report?”

  “It’s about what I expected,” Thorne shrugged.

  “Thorne,” Kane said after a minute, clearly exasperated, “aren’t you interested in it at all?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “So you’re not interested in catching this creep?”

  “Forensics is not, in this particular case, how we’re going catch this ‘creep,’” Thorne moved a black pawn and turned the board around so that he could play the white side.

  “How are we going to catch him?”

  “By figuring out where he’s going and beating or meeting him there.”

  “So where’s he going?”

  “If I already knew that, swivel-hips, would I be sitting here wasting my time talking to you?”

  “York isn’t far from here, maybe we should go take a look at the Frederickson house?” Kane asked.

  “What for?”

  “What for? To get a feel for it, get the picture of how our subject got in and out, see it with our own eyes. It’s still a fresh scene.”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “Because it’s not fresh, it was fresh the moment it was discovered and that moment has passed. Because timing is everything, Kane. And because I said so. Now go away and stop bothering me,” Thorne made a move with a white pawn, turned the board around and considered the game from the black point of view.

  “What are you doing?” Kane asked
after a moment.

  “I’m playing chess.”

  “Who are you playing?”

  “Me. I’m playing me.”

  “You’re playing with yourself?”

  This comment earned Kane an ugly look from Thorne. She settled back into her chair and gazed up at the wall. The grade-school pictures of all the victims, posited next to what post-op photos there were to be had, chafed at her intestinal tract like nails on a chalkboard. Gilday and Scroggins approached.

  “How long is Captain Asshole going to let us cool our heels here?” Kane demanded.

  “Could be quite awhile, he is the captain, and he’s probably paying you back for Riggs,” Scroggins said. “Norm told us he was sending his guy over to brief you on the latest.”

  “In all fairness to Captain Asshole, that Riggs was a real piece of work, it was a nightmare, guy was totally out of his gourd,” Gilday said.

  “You ever work with Riggs?” Scroggins asked.

  “Don’t know him. Thorne?” Kane leaned forward in her chair.

  “What?”

  “Did you know Riggs?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know him, I knew of him.”

  “And?”

  “Fuck up from Day One.”

  “How did he even get into ISU in the first place?” Kane asked.

  “Same way you did, sweet-cakes. Affirmative Action.” This comment earned Thorne a return ugly glare from Kane.

  “Forsythe’s got a couple of registered sex offenders he likes, but no hard evidence on anybody,” Gilday said.

  “Captain loves registered sex offenders, sounds really good when he says it on television,” Scroggins added. “Other than that, the sum total of who we like for this is jack fucking shit.”

  “Jesus Christ, over twenty kids and there’s nothing?” Kane shook her head.

  “Look, I don’t want you to think we’re not taking this serious,” Gilday said. “Believe me when I say that we’re pissed off and busting our asses here.”